Who Is TribYoute?

TribYoute Videos is a successful and well-established family-owned business based in the Portland Oregon area. We produce interviewed family memoirs in the Portland, Vancouver and Salem areas. We also create custom video memorial tributes, multimedia video scrapbooks, and wedding photo montages (slideshows with a modern twist), nation-wide.

The most important thing to know about us, perhaps, is that we care about all families just as if they were our own. Our family, like most, has a rich mixture of history – different cultures, races, beliefs and experiences coming together through marriages and other events that have brought us to where we are today. Our founding team believes that, unfortunately, we as a society are not doing a great job of preserving these histories using the technology we have available to us. And we are also not honoring our Elder generation until it’s too late – they’ve passed on. This certainly isn’t because we as family members don’t care…its just that everyone is so busy these days! Too busy to write things down, too busy to interview their parents or grandparents, too busy sometimes even to visit. We also are told that we can learn anything we could possibly want to know, through the Internet…and as many as of have found, that simply isn’t true.

The Internet is a powerful source of information, facts and opinions…but it is no replacement for the richness and completeness of family wisdom.

TribYoute’s founder, Karyn Reohr, is a successful Software Engineer and Businessperson, with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and a Master’s in Business Management. She enjoyed graphic design and marketing coaching at Distinction Communication for two years, after which she began a successful career at Intel in various groups, gaining promotions and awards for her dedication to customer service. She left that 10-year career at Intel to start and manage TribYoute Videos, because she has a passion for helping Seniors find their voice, and helping families preserve their heritage.

Aside from Karyn’s technical and business savvy, she loves art and design, being a creative left-hander. In fact, she provided all the creative direction for this website! Karyn has studied music since 2^nd grade and then delved into video editing and graphic design in college.  Always excited by new ideas, she has been fascinated with her family’s stories for as long as she can remember, but especially since the birth of her daughter. Below is a personal story from Karyn:

Just two months before my first daughter Riley was born, my beloved grandmother passed away unexpectedly. It was a bittersweet event as my grandmother had suffered from dementia, but I was really looking forward to introducing her to Riley and taking pictures of them together for keepsake reasons. I had even hoped she might live long enough that Riley would remember times with her. This was not meant to be as she went in for an emergency small intestine surgery and was not strong enough to make it back out of anesthesia.

This event really struck home for me the important of preserving the memories of those we have known in our family, with our future generations. The Generation X and Baby Boomer generations are the only link between our current Senior generation – those who lived through World Wars, Depressions, and other major historical events – and our children’s generation – Generation Y and beyond. We have a responsibility, and most of us feel the intense desire, to help these two generations understand one another. To draw on the wisdom of the Senior generation and to honor their legacy.

Although TribYoute has existed since 2007, in 2009 after the death of my Grandmother I decided to rework the business model to focus exclusively on honoring our Seniors and their fascinating stories. This is TribYoute’s cause. Read more about it in ‘Why We’re Here’.

It’s true that we are a video company, but we prefer to be considered community educators first.

What we do – that of preserving family histories for so many important reasons – is a pretty new concept to most people.

Completing a family history project is certainly not a mainstream family activity yet, even as genealogy continues to increase in popularity. Why not add stories and voices behind those names and dates? Our cause and mission is to make it so. Even if families write down 10 or 20 pages of their history…its certainly better than nothing. And in an age where paper, ink, and computer power is practically as accessible as bread, no family can NOT afford to document their own history.

In fact, the main obstacle in today’s society seems to be less a matter of money, and more a matter of time!

That’s why, in addition to our video and multimedia services that give you your time back, we also have developed a range of workshops, seminars, articles and tutorials to help educate why it is worth the time to complete a family history or living legacy.

How Are We Different?

You may want to know a little bit about why we consider ourselves very unique from other video and film companies, other personal historian services, and also from a “do it yourself” approach.

We aren’t different because of Quality, Good Service, or Fair Pricing. We certainly have all of these, but really, you should expect this from any professional. Quality, Service and Fair Prices are standard expectations from any company or service that you entrust with your money, time and final product.

Here are a few reasons that we are TRULY unique:

• Passionate about Educating the Community – from this website to your first email or phone call with TribYoute, to our seminars and workshops…we make sure you learn as much as you can. Education is our passion because we know that the more people know about this, and are educated as to the results and benefits you can achieve, the more people will go for it. Whether that is with us or someone else, doing video or another format…its important to just start. And that is the message we try to convey in everything we do. We truly are here to help, not to just sell!
• Helping Elders Share Their Stories – a lot of other video companies don’t focus on “the story”. Of those who do, even fewer specialize strictly on Elder generation stories and passing down of knowledge through video preservation.
• Providing Therapy Through Story – for Vets, Retirees, and those with diseases such as Alzheimer’s. We know there are a lot of people who have unique issues and have been through, or are going through, traumatic or difficult times. In these cases, story-telling – however brief it may be or start to be – is therapeutic. There are folks out there with all kinds of stories in their heads. Getting those stories out can be the first step to recovery. Sometimes it’s easier to tell your story to a stranger than it is to family members. Which is why hiring a compassionate professional partner can sometimes be the best choice.
• Bringing Families Closer Together – in this busy world, families are facing the strongest challenges yet – employees are being asked to work longer hours, pressures to put kids in activities leads to disjointed schedules, divorce rates are at all-time highs, and geographically-dispersed generations leads to disconnectedness. There are things that bring families together again, and those are usually united around a common purpose. Story-telling and a family history project is a powerful reuniter. We’ve known family members who haven’t spoken in years, who began to work reluctantly together on such a project, and ended up with a close relationship. Don’t underestimate the power of being united in a common cause…it can work wonders on relationships and families.

TribYoute understands these concepts and has centered a business around these four unique principles. The result can be truly life-transforming!

Completing a video memoir or other keepsake may seem like an overwhelming task, but when you are holding your leather tri-fold DVD folio with professionally printed DVD inside, knowing it will be around for generations to come…you’ll feel very grateful you did it. Just like living in Portland, it will be love at first sight!